


The Trouble with Birthdays

by Hedgiehairdresser



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday Party, Children, Other, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgiehairdresser/pseuds/Hedgiehairdresser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock throw Hamish a birthday party! Unfortunately, Sherlock is not what you would call 'child friendly'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of a 100% true story.  
> Dedicated to my wonderful father, who is Sherlock but we love him anyway.

"John, our son does NOT need a birthday party." Sherlock complained for the fifth time in the past twenty minutes as they drove with their now eight year old son, across town to a park where for the past two weeks, John had been planning said birthday party. The older man rolled his eyes at his partner, knowing if he didn't make an issue of Sherlock's whining, nothing would come from it. He acted more like a child than their own son did. Ignoring the detective's gripes, John briefly turned around in the driver's seat, seeing Ryder sitting contentedly with a paper cone hat adorned on his small crown.

"Are you excited to see your friends, Hamish?" The blonde asked, the back of his mind wondered if the clouds in the sky would clear up before the party actually started in two hours. The smaller boy, with his dark ebony curls just like his father, nodded his head, he was afraid to vocalise his excitement around Sherlock, since the older man had always disapproved of such emotional outbursts. John, on the other hand, thought it was unusual for a child to be so quiet and calm all the time, thinking, based on his own experience, that children did better when they were encouraged to release their emotions by screaming and laughing and bouncing, giggling, fidgeting, and squirming. Hamish just sat there, facing forward wearing his hat that he had been allowed. Now not to say he was completely devoid of expressive emotion like Sherlock liked to pretend for himself; he let loose when it was only him and John in the room, and he kept a somewhat private diary that detailed all of his worries and excited writings.

"I still don't see the point, he was born exactly eight years ago, that isn't cause for a celebration. If he won a Nobel Prize, THEN I would see reason to throw a party, I don't think we should be encouraging the celebration of surviving a full year. Maybe in a third world country where most children don't live past this point without some sort of fatal ailment, but not in a comfortable first world country that we live in. This isn't anything special." Sherlock sunk lower into the seat, crossing his arms in a moody fashion. John made a low warning sound in his throat, akin to a dog growling before attacking a stranger. He could handle Sherlock's attitude in private, but it grew intolerable when their son was around to hear the insults being flung in his direction. It wasn't the child's fault that Sherlock was so sour and cruel hearted towards festivities, all though John felt like it was partially his own fault for forcing Sherlock to come with him, he figured it would be good for Hamish to see both of his parents participating in events and not JUST John.

So much for that.

The drive took nearly an hour to get to Chobham Common due to heavy traffic, but most of the friends Hamish had invited lived in the Surrey district so the drive was not as lengthy for them. Sherlock complained the entire way and John was just happy to finally get a break. He whined more than most children. Thankfully Hamish had only invited five other kids, so he wouldn't have to rely on Sherlock to do anything that involved being around them, John figured he could get away with getting the detective to blow up balloons or some menial task that didn't require him actually being in the proximity of anyone under the age of twenty.

"All right, we're here now." John pulled into the parking lot, the trees grew tall, the Earth, unaided by the sun, grew in long yellow wisps, the hills making it seem more like an abandoned vineyard than the wildlife reserve it really was. John knew this park well, having walked the sodden trails as a child, knew exactly where the clearing was, right by the entrance that he and Sherlock were going to set up the plastic picnic tables and barbecue and balloons-all sorts of things in preparation for the party.  
"Good, the sooner we're here, the sooner we'll be able to leave." Sherlock sulked, John rolled his eyes yet again, putting their car in park. Hamish wasn't sure if he had been allowed to say anything, but he really hated how his dad seemed to disapprove of everything, if it had meant he would Sherlock's affection, he would give up everything, all of this, no more parties, no more childish habits.

"Sherlock, please grab the tables, I'll be right behind you with the totes, just set them up by that tree by the playground." John opened the car door, unlocking the boot and shooing Sherlock away before opening the side door and unlocking the seatbelt Hamish was done in, he knew the boy could do it himself, but he wanted to talk to his son for a moment in privacy.  
He listened and waited until he heard Sherlock drag the plastic tables halfway across the open space, waiting for the fade of the footprints before turning to his son.

"Hamish, I don't want you to think that your Dad doesn't care for you. He does. He's just trying to make my life harder, okay? It's not your fault, Hamish, don't ever think that, okay?" John's eyes softened, his face curving more over the years, no longer the harsh lines and straight angles that it had been before they got custody of the illegitimate by-product of Holmes-Watson breeding. His genetics proved to hold both parents, but he was, without a doubt, of Holmes fathering, John sighed, wishing he had gotten even a bit of Harry's obnoxious attitude, or Mycroft's boisterous conversations, unfortunately the lineage seemed to jump a bit and Hamish was all Sherlock's stock.  
"But Dad thinks that parties are useless, I wish I didn't ask you for one Father, now Dad's just going to be bored for the day when we could be at home with Mr. Lestrade or at a museum like he wanted." Hamish bit his bottom lip, his eyes lowered to the floor, not looking his Father in the face, the paper hat sliding further up to his forehead. John reached up and adjusted it, his other hand underneath the young boy's chin, gently forcing his gaze upwards.

"Now you listen to me, Hamish Watson-Holmes. Your Dad loves you more than he loves anything on this planet or otherwise. He loves you more than he even loves me, he would die for you, Hamish. I bet you that your Dad would jump in front of a bus if it would save you. He's all bark and no bite, really. He just loves to listen to himself talk so he complains. He does want to be here, Hamish, he wants to see you having fun with your friends and he'll do everything in his power just to make sure you have a good time. Okay? Don't let his sulking get to you, he doesn't mean it, he's just a great big oversized Chihuahua." John smiled, reassured once he saw the large grin spread out across Hamish's face, stretching ear to ear. The child flung himself into his Father's arms, appreciating the reassurance and words of comfort that were given.

"Thanks Father." He said, his black hair sticking to John's cheek as the dad patted his back.  
"No worries Hamish. Now let's go help your Dad set up, shall we?"

* * *

"Took you guys long enough." Sherlock sneered as he watched his partner lug up two stuffed tote baskets up to where Sherlock had set up the two tables. One for food, the other for sitting.  
"We were right behind you, Sherlock, but these baskets aren't exactly light." John huffed, checking over his shoulder to see if Hamish was still following him with one of the plastic chairs. Sherlock scoffed and whirled around on his heel, making a beeline back to the car to get the rest of the chairs. John wasn't very impressed with the way his boyfriend was acting, it was going to spoil not only Hamish's mood, but his as well, and Hamish of all people, didn't deserve it. Not today.

Sherlock didn't offer to help during the setup, they were there rather early after all, they weren't expecting the first children to show up for a little while now, to be honest, John was surprised that they were there that early, but he knew that if they didn't leave at that time, Sherlock would have found a way to weasel out of coming and would have stayed home, or distracted them long enough so that they didn't show up at all, leaving all of Hamish's friends to fend for themselves, and that wasn't going to happen.

The set up took up almost an hour of time, setting up the food underneath an umbrella, the games a bit further down the trail so there was no worry about anything getting into the food.  
"Hi, Mr. Watson, I presume? We're here for Hamish's party." A young woman, about her mid thirties tapped John on the shoulder, wrapped in a beige cardigan and overcoat. She was stout but had a friendly look to her face, a face that John felt he could trust being around his son. He smiled in return and shook her hand.  
"Yes, hello, I am John. This is my partner, Sherlock, and we are Hamish's fathers. May I ask who you're dropping off?" He wondered if introducing Sherlock was an appropriate decision since Sherlock didn't even give her the common courtesy of a smile and immediately turned away, muttering her faults and parenting style flaws. Rolling his eyes, John ignored him and watched the woman as her face gleamed.

"I'm Sadie, and this is my son Nowka. He adores your son, he does. He gets his looks from your partner there." Sadie winked, John was grateful that she didn't make a big deal out of the gay partnership, he's had too many parents call him out on it, he was glad someone was able to take it in stride.  
"Well you are more than welcome to stay, and you, Nowka, can go play with Hamish until more kids arrive, he's over there by the creek." John patted the other kid on the shoulder, pointing in the direction of a clearing of trees over to the south. Sadie shook her head politely, denying the invitation to stay, but thanked them for their hospitality.  
Sherlock, his voice lowered so no one who wasn't listening for him wouldn't notice him, was insulting her fashion and the way her shoes matched her overcoat. If Sadie had heard him, she didn't make any mention of it. John heard him, John heard all of his quips.

One down, four to go.

The rest of the parents dropped their children off without any crude or crass remarks from Sherlock, seeing as John made sure he put him to work with other tasks and equipment so he was distracted. It didn't work, as John still heard the snide comments, but it at least kept him busy enough so he wouldn't talk to the parents directly. Hamish, on the other hand, had forgotten all of his nerves and self consciousness as he and his friends were sprinting across the field, splashing in the water, they had only been there for maybe two hours and already he was soaked to the bone. John had been prepared for that, but the other parents hadn't. He was surprised that the fact amused him so much, he had a sardonic smirk on his face, Sherlock saw the look, giving him an equally cruel one in return.

All five children were running around, all five pairs of parents were gone, leaving Sherlock and John to handle all of them by themselves. Sherlock, however, like all great parents, had slunk away to some unknown corner of the park. John wasn't really surprised.  
'Oh well,' he thought, 'Might as well call them in to have lunch.'  
John got out his mobile, sending a quick text out to Sherlock, hoping to run him out of whatever hole he was hiding in.

_Come cook the hotdogs for the kids.  
Or I will have them track you down.  
And you will have to give piggy back rides.  
-JW_

Within five minutes, Sherlock was back around the corner, walking at a fast pace as he grabbed the packages of hotdogs and the portable barbeque. John knew he had won this round.

* * *

"And explain to me again, HOW did you manage to burn twelve hotdogs?" John crossed his arms, his face stern as all the children ran around coughing and screaming that they were going to choke to death by the thick cloud of pungent jet black smoke. Sherlock stood there with his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels like a disobedient five year old that got caught with his hand down the cookie jar.  
"The shades were progressing in a varying manner and it was intriguing." Sherlock muttered, his chin to his collarbone, face tilted towards the floor. John pinched the bridge of his nose, as he saw an elderly couple walking down the path, eying the group of children screaming and noticing the overwhelming stench of burnt meat.  
"Now we're stuck with six hungry kids! What are you going to do, Sherlock? We can't just feed them junk food!" John complained, he shouldn't have been surprised, he knew that the task was too difficult and time consuming for Sherlock to handle by himself. He should have asked him to do a less complicated job such as blowing balloons or gathering the children.

"Feed them junk food, I'll go to the store and grab some more hotdogs." Sherlock offered, a hopeful gleam in his eyes as if he was itching to get out. John caught onto that and narrowed his eyes and quickly caught Sherlock's coat sleeves.  
"No, just no. You make sure the portions are rationed in small handfuls and I'll quickly run to the shop and pick up more food."

And with that, Sherlock was left in charge to feed the mass of children demanding their lunch.

* * *

John took no longer than 10 minutes to run down to the store, he didn't even take the automobile with him for transportation. By the time he got back, he spotted six children running around, a couple plastic bags blowing in the breeze, spinning in circles and dancing along with the wind.  
"Sherlock? What the Hell happened?" John yelled, noticing how the table was a complete mess, a disaster zone with crumbs and bags and napkins flying everywhere. Sherlock, who was joining in with the children, running around and picking some of them up and carrying them American football style. He halted and whirled around on his heel, grinning at John with an over sized smile.  
"What took you so long, John? You got the food ready?" He yelled at the blonde man, he seemed to be enjoying himself at the very least, socializing and treating the children in a truly fatherly manner.

John felt his heart twinge, smiling back at him, setting down the plastic bags on the ruined table. He immediately forgot why he was so upset with Sherlock in the first place, it was just hotdogs, it didn't matter to him anymore.  
And he completely ignored the fact that three bags of crisps and several large bags of miscellaneous junk foods were devoured and missing.

* * *

Half an hour later, there were no children running around, no children screaming or giggling.  
They were all sprawled out on the grass moaning and groaning about how full they were and some of them even complaining that they shouldn't have eaten so much.  
"Sherlock, I think we fed them too much." John stated the obvious, and he knew it was obvious by the look he received from Sherlock, his eyebrow raised.  
"What do you suppose we do about that? Leave them there until they feel better?" The dark haired man crossed his arms, a sick thought brewing in the back of his mind. John couldn't catch that sardonic smirk that was now planted on the detective's face.  
"Just leave them be and help me clean up this mess." John said, turning his back to the table, which was possibly his first mistake.  
By the time he turned back around, Sherlock had been hanging over the children, encouraging them all to get on their feet, leading them over past the visibility of the small plastic picnic area that John was in.

Not caring about where Sherlock went was his second mistake.

* * *

John got around the corner at the loud yells and frightened screams of the children, and the thought that Sherlock was the only adult with the children.  
"SHERLOCK?" John yelled at the top of his lungs, running at top speed.  
He survived Afghanistan, but what he saw in the playground was an equal war zone.  
Five children all on the manual merry go round, orange and brown vomit spewed on every inch. The only child spared was Hamish, who was smart enough to take refuge on the swing set before this took place.

"Oh. Hello John." Sherlock turned to face his partner, an entertained grin on his face as five children staggered around him, their feet weighted down by the looks on their faces, their small bodies pushed to the brink. John was furious, absolutely pissed off, but he dare not show his emotion in front of the children, he didn't even know there was a playground in the area.  
"Sherlock, how did you find the playground?" He asked, feeling a bit queasy himself staring at the puddles of puke of undigested junk food and meat.  
"It was over here this whole time, we just can't see it from the tables." The detective gave John yet another one of those 'Captain Obvious' looks to signify that he should have known this the whole time.

"And did you honestly think that after feeding these children enough junk food to feed an army-AND an entire pack of hotdogs, that spinning them around and around in circles at high speed was a good idea? Did you even think about it?" John felt his anger spike as he backed off slightly to let himself cool down, he turned his head away from the disaster area, his stomach churning slightly at the sight.  
"I did think about it, and then I rationalized it by thinking that it would settle the kids down making them less rampant." Sherlock looked pleased with himself, and John was altogether sure of himself that Sherlock of all people should not be raising children.

"But now you've gone and gotten them all sick and they'll all whine and complain and tell their parents, is this really what you want other parents to think about us?" John bit his knuckles to keep himself from smacking his partner, this was just insane. In the background he heard another child emptying the contents of their stomach on the gravel floor. Before letting Sherlock comment back about how he is not 'other parents', John clapped his hands together and said in as calm voice as he could muster.  
"All right then, everyone, let's go play in the creek."

Hamish was the first one there.

* * *

"John, we still have an hour until parents are going to show up to collect their spawn, how do you propose we entertain them now?" Sherlock whispered, more or less hissing into John's ear.  
The swim had cleaned off the mess on the children's clothing, and had sobered them up enough to clear their heads and make them no longer nauseous or dizzy. John beamed when the kids had all started to regain their energy, demanding for something else to do.

"Well, we have face paint, why don't you set that up and paint rainbows and cats on everyone?" John grabbed a garbage bag from the table and started to clean up the mess, he knew the children wouldn't come back over this way anyway, and they were going to have to clean later. Sherlock grumbled to himself but regardless, grabbed the paint supplies and gathered the kids over to the far plastic picnic table. John shook his head and forced a smile, he couldn't wait for this day to be over.

* * *

"Sherlock, there are eight colours in that kit and you only used two. What the heck is going on?" John yelled as the fifth kid grew grumpy and sulked on the field, unhappy with the freshly painted skull on their face.  
"I drew skulls, John." Sherlock said, treating John like a child, repeating the obvious as if there really wasn't anything wrong with what he had done.  
"You drew skulls on children that didn't ask for skulls." John pointed out, Sherlock didn't catch his point as usual.  
"But they were asking for things that were so boring, why would I want them parading around with a puppy dog or a teddy bear on their face?" Sherlock defended his actions as if he had signed on to repaint the Mona Lisa, not just children's faces with washable paint.

Luckily, John had a cloth and a bottle of water as he worked on scrubbing the travesties off of the kids.

Sherlock sat there and rolled his eyes and Hamish sat up taller, talking to himself, but what John didn't know was that he wasn't talking to himself, he was talking to his skull.

* * *

Late afternoon rolled around eventually, seemingly taking days rather than a few mere hours.  
One by one the children left, saying goodbye to Hamish. There hadn't been many gifts, one child, Nowka, gave him a friendship bracelet, and a girl whom John couldn't name, had given him a handmade card in big, comically sized letters that said 'Happpi byrthdae Haymish". John tapped Sherlock's arm to remind him to bite his tongue rather than correct the atrocious spelling.

Once the last child had gone, John decided he could finally clean everything up and put it back into the car. He put Sherlock to work by grabbing the tables at the far end, and sent Hamish to go play in the playground whilst he and his other father were busy cleaning up.|

By the time the last table was set and back in the car, Sherlock had caused quite the argument about organization and how to properly disassemble the tables and chairs and the portable barbeque that they were still screaming at each other as they got into the car. Sherlock's voice overlapping John's reason and logic the entire way home. John was so fed up that he stepped out of the car and slammed the driver side door with such a force, it caused Mrs. Hudson to poke her head out of the window to investigate the commotion. Sherlock on the other hand refused to listen to such childish notions, insisting that next time, HE be allowed to do all the preparation for the party and he alone should do the work. Which only set John off on another rampage about his flaws and things he had messed up on today. They were only interrupted when Mrs. Hudson opened the front door to lead them inside and she looked curiously between the two of them, he head tilted and evening gown partially open. The two men didn't notice, however, as they were in the midst of their argument, voices steadying rising once more to an aggressive level.

"Boys, where's Hamish?"


End file.
